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August 18, 2017

Strange But True!

Q. You hear these blended words all the time… “brunch” (“breakfast” + “lunch”), “motel” (“motor” + “hotel”), “podcast” (“iPod” + “broadcast”), but did you know there's a name for them: “portmanteau.” Can you identify the portmanteau here: “solunar,” “dripple,” “glocalize,” “judder,” and “masstige”?

A. “Solunar,” you probably guessed, combines “solar” and “lunar” and relates to the sun and the moon, says Anu Garg on his “A.Word.A.Day” website. “Dripple,” first used in 1821, blends “drip” and “dribble” and suggests flowing in a small stream or falling in drops. “Glocalize,” combining “global” and “localize,” means making a product or service widely available but adapted for local markets. For example, the “Jewish Post” (Israel) in 2012 wrote: “Communications have also been glocalized. Facebook, the global power on the rise, is an expression of this.”